When does Guinness Book of Records come into existence?

Whenever we talk about records, Guinness Book is often the primary source of our reference. Guinness Book of Records captures records which are unique and creative. Even the most weirdest of achievements are listed in the book. But you would be amazed to know how and when this book came to existence.

In 1951, Sir Hugh Beaver the managing director of Guinness Breweries, while attending a shooting party had an argument on the fastest game bird in Europe. The arguing parties could not find a reference point to justify their opinion. After that incident Sir Beaver thought of creating a book which would hold all the records so that it can act as a reference point and would settle most of the arguments related to records.

He invited his university friends Norris and Ross McWhirter who were running a fact-finding agency in London to gather data for this book. They began working on this and after putting rigorous efforts for months , they finally compiled The Guinness Book of Records in August 1954.On 27 August, 1955 the first edition of the book was published. 50,000 copies were published and were out for sale. In next four months, by Christmas the Guinness Book emerged as the British Best Seller. The success of the book came as a surprise for Sir Beaver and McWhirter brothers. They had no idea this book had so much potential to top the best selling charts. Seeing the popularity of the book, they began working on releasing the further editions of the book.
In 1956, the first US edition and second UK edition were released. The book was a huge success in US as well. By 1960, 5 lac copies of the book were sold.

Timeline:

1962 -> First French Edition and Second US edition was released.1963 -> First German Edition was released1964 -> 1 million books were sold.1966 -> 1.5 million copies were printed.1967 -> First Japanese and Spanish editions were released.1968 -> First Swedish , Finnish , Italian and South African editions were released.1971 -> First Dutch edition was released.1974 -> The Guinness Book of Records became the best selling copyright book in history.1975 -> The Guinness Book of Records museum was opened in New York , USA.1981 -> First Chinese Edition was published.1987 -> New Edition was published in 31 languages.1991 -> Guinness Book of Records museum was opened in Hollywood.1996 -> New Office was opened in New York, USA.1998 -> First programme broadcast in USA called Guinness World Records Primetime.1999 -> First Programme broadcast in UK , France and Sweden2000 -> Website guinnessworldrecords.com was launched2003 -> 10 crore copies were sold.2010 -> New office opens in Tokyo, Japan2012 -> New Office opens in China.2013 -> New Office opens in Dubai.